Electrifying a school in Burkina Faso

Partner organizations: The Martin Luther King end Edouard Branly vocational high scools and Nongbzanga, a local association in Issaogo

Description: Electrification of the Issaogo school, with vocational high school students insatlling photovoltaics panels

Akuo Foundations's role: Financing and mentoring the operation

Start date: March 2013

Young people with a purpose

In 2006, a group of students and teachers at the Martin Luther King vocational high school in Lyon founded a Solidarity Club as a vehicle for international solidarity projects. Realizing they could leverage their skills to serve a village in Burkina Faso, they gradually established close ties to the village of Issaogo and the community association Nongbzanga created by villagers to make the people of Issaogo the key figures in local development. This partnership gave the Solidarity Club a first opportunity in 2006 to help with drilling and installation of a hand water pump.

Since then, teachers returned to the village on several occasions, and the head of Nongbzanga, Idrissa Ouedraogo, visited the Lyon school in October 2012 to meet with the students. In the course of their meeting, the decision was made to equip the village school with solar panels. The Club members, who were eager to get involved in another solidarity project, were joined by students from the Edouard Branly high school in Lyon.

Let there be light!

Students and teachers from the two schools in Lyon are partnering with the Nongbzanga association to electrify the village school and dispensary with solar panels, paired with a power storage and lighting system. With classroom lighting, evening classes can be held to teach men and women who work all day how to read and write. The Nongbzanga association will be providing the courses. In addition, once the school has electric power, it can install computers and other modern equipment that will help the children of Issaogo get a better education. Regarding the dispensary, the lighting has a significant impact on the quality of care.

The trip to the village will be highly instructive for the French students. It will give them an opportunity to apply their skills in a humanitarian project, while learning about the culture of Burkina Faso and the sustainability issues facing this region of Africa.